rru 


11 
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No.  30. 

COUNSEL  TO  THE  CONVICTED. 


You  acknowledge  the  existence  of  God,  and  your 
accountability  to  him;  that  lie  is  righteous,  and  that 
sin  is  wrong  and  without  excuse.  You  acknowledge 
that  the  law  of  God  is  holy,  and  the  commandment  holy 
and  just  and  good;  that  you  have  broken  the  law,  and 
are  condemned  by  it  as  a  transgressor.  You  are  aware 
that  the  wages  of  sin  is  "  death" — that  death  which 
stands  over  against  the  "eternal  life"  which  is  the  gift 
of  God  through  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  you  lie  under 
this  condemnation,  in  your  sins,  exposed  to  the  righte- 
ous inflictions  of  violated  law. 

The  more  you  reflect  upon  the  subject,  the  more 
your  sins  rise  up  to  condemn  you.  They  present 
themselves  in  every  direction,  under  every  form  of 
thought  and  conduct,  and  in  every  degree  of  aggrava- 
tion and  guilt — law  violated  and  authority  unheeded, — 
the  goodness  and  long  suffering  of  God  abused, — a  hard 
and  impenitent  heart  persisted  in  against  all  the  over- 
tures of  mercy,  and  a  poignant  conviction  that  you  have 
(t  trodden  under  foot  the  Son  of  God,  and  counted  the 
blood  of  the  covenant,  wherewith  he  was  sanctified,  an 
unholy  thing,  and  done  despite,"  you  fear,  *J  to  the 
Spirit  of  grace  ;"  and  you  cannot  rest  :  a  sense  of  guilt 
and  deserved  wrath  forbids  it.  Once  you  were  "alive 
without  the  law,"  but  not  so  now.  The  desperate 
wickedness  of  your  heait  and  life  is  discovered  to  you; 
the  commandment  has  come;  sin  has  revived;  and  you 
appreciate,  in  some  measure,  your  condition,  as  one 
that  is  "  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins."  Weighed  down 
with  a  sense  of  guilt  and  condemnation,  you  exclaim, 
Wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the 
body  of  this  death. 

But  conviction  does  not  bring  peace.  You  are  not 
reconciled  to  God.  Conscience-does  but  forbode  indig- 
nation and  wrath  as  the  portion  of  your  cup  at  the  hand 
of  Him  who  is  holy  and  true.  You  dare  not  go  back; 
to  stay  where  you  are,  you  know,  is  death;  and  urged 


2  COUNSEL    TO    THE    CONVICTED. 

by  the  solemnities  that  surround  you,  and  the  deep  com- 
punctions of  your  spirit,  you  ask,  with  the  convicted 
jailer,  "Sirs,  what  must  1  do  to  be  saved?"  I  an- 
swer, 

1.  Carry  your  case  to  God.  Acknowledge  all  your 
sin  and  guilt  to  him.  Pour  all  your  convictions  into 
his  ear,  and  spread  before  him  all  the  terrors  and  bur- 
dens of  your  soul.  Your  sin  is  committed  against  him. 
It  is  the  violation  of  his  righteous  law — rebellion  against 
his  rightful  authority — disobedience  to  his  most  holy 
will — the  rejection  of  his  infinite  claims  upon  you  ;  and 
he  has  a  right  to  know,  from  you,  your  most  inward 
convictions,  and  your  whole  soul  in  relation  to  it.  All 
your  way  in  transgression  has  been  against  God,  and 
you  ought  at  once,  and  like  a  child,  to  acknowledge  all 
before  him.  There  tell  the  story  of  your  guilt,  and  with 
the  deepest  contrition  and  the  most  heartfelt  sorrow  and 
penitence,  confess  all  your  unworthiness  in  his  sight. 
Reason  teaches  this,  and  this  course  you  would  take  if 
you  had  wronged  an  earthly  friend,  or  you  would  not 
expect  forgiveness  from  him,  or  reconciliation  to  him, 
or  an  unburdened  conscience.  Equally  indispensable 
is  the  same  course  in  our  relations  as  sinners  against 
God  ;  and  in  respect  to  this  you  have,  as  yet,  wholly 
failed.  You  have  not  brought  your  state  and  wants 
before  God.  You  have  not  come  to  him,  in  penitent 
acknowledgment  of  your  sin,  and  confessed,  in  broken- 
ness  of  spirit,  your  transgressions  against  him.  You 
have  not  opened  the  fountain  of  your  grief  and  tears 
before  the  throne.  You  have  not  unbosomed  yourself 
there.  Hitherto  you  have  turned  away  from  God,  and 
kept  your  convictions  and  anxieties  to  yourself,  or  made 
them  known  only  to  others  like  yourself.  You  have 
not  acted  the  part  of  a  child  in  this  matter.  You  have 
not  said.  "Father,  I  have  sinned 'against  heaven  and 
before  thee,  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called  thy 
son  :"  "  against  thee,  thee  only,  have  I  sinned,  and 
done  this  evil  in  thy  sight." 

Perhaps  you  forget  that  God  is  on  the  throne  of 
grace,  that  he  has  provided  a  Saviour,  and  in  infinite 
compassion  promised  life  to  the  penitent,  returning 
sinner.     "  As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord,  I  have  no  pleasure 


COUNSEL    TO    THE    CONVICTED.  3 

in  the  death  of  the  wicked,  but  that  he  turn  from  his 
wicked  way  and  live."  "Come  unto  me,  all  ye  who 
labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 
"Though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  white 
as  snow;  though  they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall 
be  as  wool."  From  some  cause,  you  do  not  throw 
yourself  into  the  arms  of  the  ever-blessed  God  himself, 
who  only  can  forgive  sin.  You  feel  guilty  and  self- 
condemned,  and,  it  may  be,  smitten  to  the  earth  by  the 
multitude  and  enormity  of  your  sins  and  the  exceeding 
wickedness  of  your  heart  ;  and  yet  you  do  not  come 
and  take  refuse  in  the  mercy  of  God,  and  you  are  not 
comforted.  Forgiveness  seems  far  from  you.  Your 
conscience  is  not  relieved.  Your  sin  is  unpardoned; 
your  load  of  guilt  and  condemnation  yet  remains,  and 
presses  with  continually  increasing  weight  upon  your 
soul,  and  it  ever  must  while  you  stay  away  from  God. 

2.  That  you  have  no  righteousness  of  your  own  before 
God.  Seek  not  to  justify  yourself  at  the  foot  of  the 
throne,  or  to  palliate  your  offences,  or  to  turn  away 
from  a  full  conviction  of  your  ruined  condition  by  sin. 
A(  knowledge/  without  reserve,  the  claims  of  the  law  of 
God  upon  you,  and  the  justice  of  your  condemnation  as 
a  transgressor.  Give  up  the  controversy  with  God,  and 
as  a  lost  and  helpless  sinner,  who  has  forfeited  every 
thing,  and  might  justly  be  cast  off  for  ever,  throw  your- 
self wholly  upon  his  mercy.  There  "all  our  hopes 
begin."  It  was  "when  we  were  without  strength"  that 
"Christ  died  for  the  ungodly."  We  must  go  wholly 
out  of  ourselves  for  the  ground  of  pardon  and  accept- 
ance with  God.  "Not  by  works  of  righteousness  which 
we  have  done,  but  according  to  bis  mercy  he  saveth  us, 
by  ihe  washing  of  regeneration  and  the  renewing  of  the 
Holy  Ghost;  that  being  justified  by  his  grace,  we 
should  be  made  heirs  according  to  the  hope  of  eternal 
life."  "Not  unto  us,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  thy  name 
give  glory  for  thy  mercy  and  thy  truth's  sake,"  is  the 
song  of  all  the  ransomed  of  God.  It  is  the  theme  of 
the  Christian  in  all  his  earthly  pilgrimage,  and  he 
enters  into  rest,  exclaiming,  l'Fm  a  sinner  saved  by 
grace." 

3.  Rely  on  Christ.     He  is  the  only  Saviour,  his  death 


4  COUNSEL    TO    THE    CONVICTED. 

the  only  expiation  for  sin,  the  only  channel  of  the  mercy 
of  God.  Without  it  forgiveness  would  be  impossible, 
and  our  fallen  world  be  without  help.  But  God  has 
laid  upon  him  our  iniquities,  set  him  forth  to  be  a  pro- 
pitiation through  faith  in  his  blood,  and  revealed  his 
righteousness,  while  he  justifies  him  that  believeth  in 
Jesus.  He  is  the  "  only  name  given  under  heaven 
among  men  whereby  we  must  be  saved,"  and  in  him 
only  have  we  righteousness  and  strength.  Place  your 
dependence,  then,  wholly  upon  him;  plead  his  interpo- 
sition for  sinners  ;  his  atoning  merits  as  the  ground  of 
pardon,  and  come  to  God  in  his  name.  Knowing  that 
it  is  by  being  forgiven  all  our  sin,  for  his  sake,  that  we 
are  accepted  and  saved,  receive  him  as  a  Saviour, 
acknowledge  your  indebtedness  to  him,  and  give  him 
your  heart.  As  your  Redeemer  and  Lord,  receive  him; 
consecrate  your  heart,  your  soul,  your  life,  your  all  to 
him.  As  one  bought  with  his  blood,  ransomed  from  sin 
and  hell  by  his  deatli  on  ihe  cross,  cleave  in  child-like 
simplicity  to  him,  and  follow  him  in  newness  of  life. 
This  is  believing  upon  him;  this  is  accepting  him  as 
offered  in  the  gospel.  This  cleaving  to  (Christ  involves 
repentance  for  sin  and  true  humiliation  before  God  on 
account  of  it;  our  dying  unto  sin  and  living  unto  God  ; 
conversion  in  the  spirit  of  our  mind,  and  our  evangelical 
obedience.  The  sinner  thus  repenting,  believing,  re- 
turning to  God  by  the  gospel,  meets  the  terms  of  for- 
giveness revealed  in  his  behalf.  Here  the  gushing 
waters  of  salvation  flow  to  his  soul.  Here  sin  is  for- 
given ;  the  controversy  ceases,  and  reconciled  and  ac- 
cepted, he  becomes  a  child  and  heir  of  God,  through 
grace. 

You  have  the  answer  then,  and  you   see  the  issue  : 
"  This  do,  and  thou  shall  live." 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE   SOUTH  CAROLINA  TRACT  SOCIETY. 

Printed  by  Evans  &  Cogswell,  No.  3  Broad  street,  Charleston,  S.  C 


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